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It's that time of year where the garden beds that we planted those tiny seeds start producing their big fruits. I like to garden, but I ABSOLUTELY love to "put-up" our own food, especially when it's food that we've grown ourselves. There's just something about harvesting the veggies or fruit from your own garden, and putting it into jars, knowing exactly what is in it and then after the process is all finished, standing back and looking at what i've made from our own food. That in itself is very satisfying.

This year is a bit different with our gardens, because I have the help of a very dear friend, Jane. Jane and her husband, Jamey have decided to join us on our homestead, helping us garden and farm while we (mainly Joel) helps them build their first home. We sold them an acre of our land in hopes to share our farm with them. I guess you can consider this a "commune." So, we share the homesteading responsibilities and one of the major ones being the garden.

Since I recently had Silas, who is now 5 months old, I gave Jane the majority of the garden responsibility. The reason for that being, I knew it would be a big adjustment for us to go from a family with 2 kids to now being a family with 3 kids, and I knew most of my time during the gardening months would be spent nursing an infant and trying to get a good routine down for our new, growing family.

I knew that I wouldn't have enough time or energy to make much of a garden for ourselves this summer, so who better to do it than, Jane. I am so happy to have her around. She has made us one fabulous garden! She's also stretched me and taught me to like different veggies, mostly greens. I have helped her with the garden, like planting and weeding and harvesting, but she was the master-mind behind all of it. I definitely would not have had the energy to plan the garden she has made for us. We are now getting some amazing veggies out of our garden. We actually have been for a while, because she got a good start on planting things early.

With all of that being said, the last few days has been so much fun canning our produce. I canned a bunch of pickled beets and today I will can some bread and butter pickles!! I've frozen a few qrts. of shelled peas and snow peas. I love to look at all the things that we've grown and see them made into wonderful, yummy things. I've also made a batch of strawberry and rhubarb jam. The strawberries I picked from a local farm and the rhubarb is from our farm. I love that I can have jam that doesn't cost me a thing and has no added preservatives or high-fructose corn syrup added to it.

Harvesting season is just beginning. I can't wait for the other veggies to come into maturity. I am especially excited about our pumpkins, other winter squash and onions.

There's just something about doing all of this homemaking stuff that fills my heart with joy! :)

let me tell you about a little lady by the name of, June Mitchell

Recently, I took a drive down to Belfast to visit my midwives, mainly just to show Silas off to them and to make a trip to the wonderful Co-op health food store. I arrived to MorningStar Midwifery's building but to my dismay the doors were locked. Knowing that Donna & Ellie were going to be there that day, I opted to just hang out in front of the door. I had Silas and Jeremiah with me and we were just minding our own business when, I saw this tiny old lady, probably 70 something, with long white hair that looked like it hadn't been brushed in a while, wearing a long sweater over a t-shirt that had holes in it and a skirt that came to the middle of her calves, she was also wearing long socks with colorful stripes on them with sandals and was pushing a cart with what looked to be her belongings all in a suitcase.

Now, as I was observing her and making my own judgments about her and hoping that I didn't look to eager to talk, she walked right up to me and immediately started oohing and ahhing over Silas. I was trying real hard to politely "shoo" her away by just not really engaging her or not giving her eye contact. She continued to "coo" to Silas who returned wonderful smiles towards her, which made her feel giggly. She then started talking to me, in a very tiny voice, which I found fitting for her very tiny body. She was just asking the normal questions people want to know when inquiring about babies, like, how old, did you have him naturally? etc. I told her that I had him at home and in fact with the midwifery practice that I happened to be standing in front of. She got excited when I told her that these ladies were midwives who help deliver babies at home. As we're standing there, the cars whizzing by, she continues to talk to me, but now i'm having a hard time hearing her, mainly because of the traffic and her soft, tiny voice. So, keep in mind that she's telling me something and i'm not able to hear her well, but I see her start to untie her sweater and pull it away from her belly that in all honesty was bigger than the rest of her, and she kept rubbing it and then making googly eyes over Silas. I started to move in closer to her so that I would be able to piece together what it was this woman was trying to tell me. Was I hearing her right?! Was she now telling me that she was PREGNANT?! I kept listening, not really saying much, other than, "yes, really?," you know, that sort of not so rude response. Once the traffic waned a little bit I realized, that, yes, I WAS hearing her correctly, she was telling me she was PREGNANT! I really didn't know what to say, other than, "wow, congratulations, how far a long are you?" She then laughed and told me how embarrassed she was and that she knew that it sounds just awful for a woman her age to even be able to get pregnant. She proceeded to tell me that she only ovulates 2 times a month and that she had met this younger man who took advantage of her back in November and it just so happened it was while she was ovulating. So, at the time that this was taking place that would make her about 7 months pregnant.

She definitely had a belly on her, but my first thoughts were that she had some sort of tumors or something like that, not a baby!! What she was trying to find out from me was if I thought that my midwives would help her because, her doctor wouldn't because he kept trying to tell her it was cancer and just prescribe meds to her that she didn't want to take because she knew it was a baby and she didn't want to hurt her baby. At this point, I realize, that she isn't all with it and that she probably really does have some sort of a tumor growing in her but she is trying to deny that because that could be scary. And she had 6 kids with her previously abusive husband, so she could handle giving birth to her 7th, right?! I begin to have compassion on her and really feel sorry for this little old lady. So, I played along with her being pregnant and just told her to call my midwives that they would probably be more than willing to help her out. She jokingly said at one point, "i've done this 6 other times, but never on my own, so I think I could handle it, I would just need a shoestring to cut the umbilical cord right?" I told her that she needed to be a little more prepared than that, and she should just call Donna & Ellie and see what they say.

As I felt the conversation dying down, I had realized that we never exchanged names. So, I asked her what her name was and she shook my hand with her tiny, frail, old hand and said, "my name is June Mitchell." I told her that I would be praying for her and that she should take care of herself and give those midwives a call. As she started down the hill to continue on her daily walk, she turned around to me and said, "thank you dear, you know, not everyone stops and talks to me, usually they just keep walking, but not you, you were very sweet to take time to listen to me." And on that note she headed down the hill. As I watched her hunched over, tiny little body with a big belly, walk away, tears filled my eyes with sympathy for June.

I've never been one to just talk to anyone I see on the street so that situation was a bit nerve wracking for me. I must admit though, that I was glad that I took the time to listen to her, even if she was crazy, she obviously was feeling lonely and probably scared, whether it was that she really thinks that she was pregnant or if she really knows the truth that it wasn't a baby growing in there but really a tumor.

I did get to see my midwives that afternoon and they happened to be pulling up as June was still in view. So, I "warned" them that they might be seeing that little old lady over there walking down the street, and as I was pointing to her, Ellie said, "oh, you mean, June, yes, she's a very sweet lady and probably told you that she was expecting, right?" I said, "yes, you know her?" Ellie told me that Belfast is full of characters and that June is one lives in the homeless shelter there. It all made sense to me at that point. I just smiled and then went on to showing off my baby.

The moral of the story is, talking to strangers isn't all that bad and will probably end up meaning more to you than the other person. I wonder if June thinks about me as much as I think of her.